Published May 12, 2020•Updated on May 12, 2020 at 3:17 pm

Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of the Illinois Department of
Public Health, dismissed claims that the state is overstating the number of
coronavirus-related deaths amid the ongoing pandemic, saying that only deaths
of patients with laboratory-confirmed cases of the virus are being counted in
the official tally.

During her daily press statement Tuesday, Ezike said that
she has heard concerns about the methods the state is using to report
coronavirus deaths, and assured residents that the state is working to make
sure that their counts are as accurate as possible.

“We are reporting
those deaths that have laboratory confirmation, meaning that they have been
tested and a laboratory test indicates that they were COVID positive,” she
said. “As we learn more about the disease, there may have been less typical
presentations of COVID-19 that were not appropriately attributed to COVID
because there wasn’t a test done because the suspicion was not there.”

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In all, Illinois has reported 3,601 deaths related to the
virus since the pandemic began. The state reported 144 additional deaths on
Tuesday, with 4.3 percent of confirmed COVID-19 cases resulting in deaths.

Ezike said that the state is being careful to make sure to weed out deaths where the patient had COVID-19, but died in a manner completely detached from the virus, such as gunshot wounds or motor vehicle crashes.

May 11 briefing: Dr. Ngozi Ezike reveals how Illinois’ first shipment of a drug called remdesivir, which is being used to help treat hospitalized coronavirus patients, will be distributed. The Food and Drug Administration recently cleared Gilead Science’s intravenous drug for hospitalized patients with “severe disease,” such as those experiencing breathing problems requiring supplemental oxygen or ventilators.

“There are also some additional deaths that happen in
someone who happened to be COVID positive, but where the COVID infection had
nothing to do with the deaths,” she said. “So we are at IDPH trying to remove
those obvious cases where the COVID diagnosis was not the reason for the death.
If there was a gunshot wound, if there was a motor vehicle accident, we know
that that was not related to the COVID positive status.

“We are trying to make sure that things that aren’t related
at all to the COVID diagnosis are removed, but if someone has another illness,
like heart disease, and then had a stroke or other event, it’s not as easy to
separate that and say COVID didn’t exacerbate that existing illness. That would
not be removed from the count,” she added.

Above all else, Ezike said that the state is striving for as
much accuracy as possible, presenting a true picture of what is going on
statewide when reporting on the number of cases and fatalities related to the
virus.

“We will continue to
work to provide quickly and responsibly and accurately represent what we are, in
fact, seeing here in Illinois,” she said.